Sarah Mayhew Craddock loses herself and her inhibitions in a walk-in sculpture which blends colours and music to create an unique experience of colour

Like stepping out of one extraordinary universe of fountains, formal gardens, and French chateau-inspired architecture, into another equally extraordinary one, Colourscape festival of colour, light and music returns to the grassy lawns of North Front, Waddesdon Manor, until Sunday, April 12.

The brain-child of artist Peter Jones, Colourscape is an immersive, walk-in sculpture of monumental proportions. Visitors will be invited to step inside 71 interlinked chambers where they can encounter a world of unexpected and unusual musical experiences as they explore an otherworldly, dazzling maze of sumptuous sounds and colours, winding paths and soaring domes.

Returning to Waddesdon Manor following its popular debut last summer, Colourscape has grown to three times the size of last year’s structure. Each day it will resonate with the sound of experimental musical public performances, and on occasion visitors will be invited to join the musicians in creating soundscapes. Weekdays will see Colourscape’s resident multi-instrumentalist Michael Ormiston perform, while weekends will see a selection of different ensembles performing using new and unusual instruments. Performance styles will range from Balinese Gamelan processions through to music played on bicycle parts.

Colourscape is an experience devised for visitors of all ages. Those who experienced Colourscape at Waddesdon last year described it as “a unique experience”, “surreal”, and “psychedelic”!

The extraordinary labyrinth of intense light, colour and space that is Colourscape is undeniably trippy.

It is brought to the National Trust stately home near Aylesbury by a company called Eye Music, whose aim is to bring contemporary music and arts to the public by linking music, colour, light, space and movement through the new environments they create. Eye Music claim that Colourscape gives new dimensions to public perception and new understanding of contemporary music and performing arts.

They say: “Colourscape has proved to be the perfect environment to increase the appreciation of some of the most challenging and creative music to a very large audience of all ages.”

Spending time in Colourscape I experienced a multitude of sensations – from introspective deep reflection, to a mind-altering meditative state, all the way through to compulsive, joyous voyeurism.

This unusual, enormous, curious structure draws visitors in, and holds them in its belly and limbs, whether experiencing it solo or as part of a group. Observing others in the space is pure joy.

Much research has been carried out on the psychological properties of colour. Apparently, there are four psychological primary colours – red, blue, yellow and green, which relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions and the essential balance between these three. I wasn’t conscious of these colours at play as I became absorbed by my environment, slumped with my back on the floor and legs in the air against the side of one of Colourscape’s many curved ‘walls’ (this isn’t the way that I would ordinarily take in an art installation), but these colours can only have been affecting my out of character behaviour.

And I was not alone; from the toddler to the old age pensioner, it would seem that it is almost impossible not to lose oneself as one is moved by the sense of wonder within the womb-like chasm that is Colourscape.